One idea holds it all together: interdependence. Our relationships with technology, with each other, and with the planet.
Baratunde Thurston is a writer, host, and speaker exploring how we live well with technology, with each other, and with the planet. He has spent decades creating with and criticizing technology, from The Onion to The Daily Show to Life With Machines, his public interest media company, which won a 2026 People's Voice Webby for Best Creative Use of AI and Tech. His work helps us co-create a future that doesn't suck, integrating humanity, humor, and a deep sense of place into the conversation about where we are taking technology, and who gets to decide.
Baratunde hosts Life With Machines, co-created and hosts the civic podcast How To Citizen, hosted and executive produced the PBS series America Outdoors, and wrote the New York Times bestseller How to Be Black. He wrote the foreword to American Indigenous Democracy: A Call for Interdependence. He keynotes for and advises organizations that want to think hard about technology and the future without losing sight of the people and the planet it's meant to serve.
His worldview is grounded in the truth of our interdependence, which has made him one of the few voices in technology also trusted in Indigenous communities, cited by faith leaders, built into civic curricula, and formally recognized for making people laugh.
At the end of the day, he's an Earthling.
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Baratunde Thurston is a writer, host, and speaker exploring how we live well with technology, with each other, and with the planet. He has spent decades creating with and criticizing technology, from The Onion to The Daily Show to his Webby Award-winning project Life With Machines, focused on how we live well with AI and don't just endure it. He also hosted the PBS series America Outdoors and co-created How To Citizen. At the end of the day, he's an Earthling.
Baratunde Thurston is a writer, host, and speaker exploring how we live well with technology, with each other, and with the planet, integrating humanity, humor, and a deep sense of place. His latest project is the Webby Award-winning Life With Machines. Other work includes PBS's America Outdoors and How To Citizen. At the end of the day, he's an Earthling.
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